Employers finding way around OSHA’s tougher stance

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/dec/29/employers-finding-way-around-oshas-tougher-stance/

Companies increasingly appealing safety violation cases to a review board, and winning

By Alexandra Berzon

Mon, Dec 29, 2008 (2 a.m.)

No one saw Michael Taylor fall to his death at the Cosmopolitan construction site nearly a year ago.

But in the investigation after his death, state inspectors found that one of the posts that held up a guardrail system had collapsed. A mistake by one of the many contractors on the site, it seemed, had created the conditions that caused Taylor to fall five floors.

But in the end, no one was held responsible for the safety problems that led to Taylor’s death.

That conclusion was reached Sept. 2 by the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration appeals board, even as the agency — stung by appearances it was not aggressively dealing with construction deaths on the Strip — was adopting a new, get-tough attitude in holding employers responsible for workplace safety violations.

The agency’s new enforcement tack was to not remove or water down citations when employers informally objected to them, but rather to stand by investigators’ findings and force the employers to appeal them to the review board, made up of labor and management representatives appointed by the governor.

But here is the new reality: Employers who do appeal are winning their cases when they take them to the appeals board, because the OSHA staff is unable to make its case.

FULL story at link.

[Triana]

1. "labor and management representatives appointed by the governor"

I find that suspect. They should be appealing to OSHA. Period.